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Roach sees Senchenko’s jab being the key to his fight against Malignaggi

By Jason Kim: Trainer Freddie Roach sees WBA World welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko (32-0, 21 KO’s) beating Paulie Malignaggi (30-4, 6 KO’s) with his jab later on in the month on April 29th at the Donbass Arena, in Donetsk, Ukraine.

Malignaggi doesn’t have the reach or a jab nearly as good as Senchenko’s and he’s going to have problems with getting past it unless Malignaggi is able to somehow duck underneath it to land his scoring shots.

Roach said “His [Senchenko] jab is his best weapon and I think that it will be the difference in this fight. He has a faster jab than Malignaggi and it should control the fight.”

Malignaggi is going to have to try and find a formula to beat the bigger and stronger Senchenko, because he just doesn’t seem to match up in the skills department from the looks of it. Malignaggi has had a 2 year break from taking on quality fighters and it’s going to be a significant jump up in competition for him from the guys that Malignaggi has been facing as of late.

Malignaggi’s last hard fight was in May 2010 when he was jabbed silly by Amir Khan and taken out in the 11th round in a one-sided fight. He’s fought three lesser welterweights since moving up in weight in defeating Orlando Lora, Jose Miguel Cotto and Michael Lozada. Those guys shouldn’t have resulted in Malignaggi getting a title fight or a #2 ranking by the WBA.

Malignaggi would have done better had he been put in a eliminator bout against Thomas Dulorme because boxing fans would at least get a worthy challenger for Senchenko rather than what appears to be a fighter getting a shot because he’s better known than the other contenders in the World Boxing Association ranking. But it will even itself out after Saturday when Malignaggi likely struggles badly in losing. He’ll be moved down in the rankings, and the better fighters that arguably should have been ranked above him all along will be positioned above him.

To say that Senchenko has taken it easy in defending his WBA title three times is putting it mildly. He’s been matched with extra, extra care against seriously weak fighters, and Malignaggi is more of the same kind of weak matchmaking. In his three title defenses, Senchenko has beaten the following fighters: Motoki Sasaki, Charlie Jose Navarro and Marco Antonio Avendano. It’s unknown when Senchenko will finally face a good contender, but my guess is in 2013 he’ll likely be forced to fight someone like Thomas Dulorme.